I am loving finding new recipes for Meat Free Monday. We bought courgettes last week because I was going to make a feta & courgette couscous, but the weather turned stormy and it wasn’t the right recipe for the weather. So I found this one!
serves 2
prep: 10 minutes
cook: 25 minutes
Ingredients
2 tbsp olive oil
1 small onion, diced
2 garlic cloves, crushed
½ tsp coriander seeds, crushed
200g risotto rice
500ml vegetable stock
200g carton passata 400g tin of chopped tomatoes
12 cherry tomatoes, halved
2 courgettes, halved and sliced
2 tbsp mascarpone
parmesan (or vegetarian alternative), grated, to serve
Method
Put 1 tbsp of oil in a large pan over medium heat. Add the onion and cook for 5-7 mins until softened. Add the garlic and coriander seeds and cook, stirring, for another 1 min. Stir in the risotto rice, coating it in the onion mixture. Gradually add 300ml of the vegetable stock, stirring until fully absorbed by the rice between each addition. Pour the passata into the risotto, cover, and simmer for 10-15 mins. Stir occasionally and add more stock as needed.
Meanwhile, heat oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6. Put the cherry tomatoes and courgettes in a roasting tin, keeping them separate, drizzle with 1 tbsp olive oil, season, and roast for 10-12 mins until just tender.
Add the mascarpone and plenty of seasoning to the risotto. Stir until the rice is completely cooked and the risotto is creamy, about 5 mins more. Add the courgettes and stir to combine. Serve the risotto in bowls topped with roasted tomatoes and some grated Parmesan.
Now, I made a few changes to the recipe. I didn’t have passata or cherry tomatoes in the house, so I used a tin of chopped tomatoes instead. And instead of roasting the courgette, I sauteed them – and with them the last of a bag of frozen casserole veg (carrot, swede, turnip, celery, and onion) from the back of the freezer. And we had grated red leicester and mozarella on top, again because that’s what we had in the fridge
It was absolutely delicious. Li says it was ‘super duper nom’. It was very filling, lovely and creamy, and we’ve got two more portions in the freezer. Definitely a recipe I’m adding to my repertoire – and already looking to the next one.
Even better is that Li used the leftover marscapone to make a chocolate mousse – which we had with some leftover homemade salted caramel sauce (recipe to follow if/when I can wrestle it out of her)
